I'm not sure why I bother with posts like these, since they can pretty much all be boiled down to "Gevlon has absolutely no clue how humans think, including himself", but what would blogging be if we never pointed out the obvious and said it fifty different ways?

This recent post is about how people don't need alts to experience content, based on the claim that the only difference between alt and main is the time it takes to complete the quests and therefore any sense of difference between alt and main is irrational.

Let's assume this isn't a ridiculous approach to experiences and assume that indeed, speed is all that matters. In that case, I would say that in fact an alt is the worst possible character to use. In fact, so is a main. Yes, one time you should ride around on your main to see everything. After that, go to wowhead and read the quest text and if you're too dumb to visualize things, look at the screenshots. This will yield the fastest possible experience and exploration. Anything other than this is clearly irrational. I'm trying to say that Gevlon is stupid, just in case you didn't pick up the theme of "I say obvious things in this post."

Which brings me to my title: subjective and irrational are not the same. As one commenter pointed out, an alt will gain from the questing through XP, reputation, and running near resource nodes. Of course this progression will never reach that of the main, but for a person who enjoys the sense of progression, there it is. Subjective, yes, but not irrational. In fact it would be irrational to block said sense of progression and therefore lose out on the enjoyment from it.

Experience itself is subjective and different people will notice and care about different aspects. This means that even for the same circumstances, experience will be different. For one person the experience may be the quest reward plus some wasted time, for another it is the quest text plus some vendor silver, for another it is a XP boost.

For many it is not merely the quest taken and turned in, but the process as well. Levels and gear will change that process. Something as simple as an aggro range can change how a player perceives an experience, and therefore change the experience. Along these lines, it is worth remembering that the quests are designed for players in a certain level range, possibly losing out on aspects of the experience otherwise.

Again with the aggro, since it is simplest to use, but imagine an ambush: at level 15 the enemies will be on you in a second while at 80 they may fail to aggro at all. While fighting the enemies an 80 may kill them in a single AoE while the level 15 will go target by target, not necessarily in grave danger, but still with the sense that it is something more than trivial, which will change the experience. On the subject of intended level range, the tiny aggro range of a level 80 in a level 20 zone, to many players, is a constant reminder: "you are not supposed to be here". That again, changes the experience.

He ends with this:

So the difference between doing the content as lvl 80 vs a new alt is simply less time spent having the same experience. You absolutely don't need an alt for exploration purposes. The only exceptions are starter quests (they are race-specific), the DK questline, and having one alt in the other faction to access faction specific quests and visit faction cities/towns. If people would really want to explore content, they would do it on their main. They prefer alts for irrational reasons.

Now you may decide to nitpick and say that I keep talking about experience while he talks about exploration. You'd be wrong to try that. First off, much of the content of the post is about the process, the experience, and claiming how alts are merely slower rather than any different (which I have proven to be false, at least based on the assumption that the player in question is human). Second, exploration is itself based on experiencing content, not merely seeing. You could see everything on wowhead and youtube, yet you instead ride around, why? Because the riding, the searching, are both part of the exploration as a process of experience. We don't merely see content, we experience it.

Now that I've attacked nitpicking, I will go sentence by sentence pointing out all the stupidity.So the difference between doing the content as lvl 80 vs a new alt is simply less time spent having the same experience.- As proven in the rest of the post: false, assuming a human mind.

You absolutely don't need an alt for exploration purposes.- True, if we are counting exploration as merely looking at places rather than doing anything. In other words: false.

The only exceptions are starter quests (they are race-specific), the DK questline, and having one alt in the other faction to access faction specific quests and visit faction cities/towns.- Ignoring the "only exceptions" part, refer to my section on just reading the quests and watching videos online if the only goal is speed. In addition, a patient player could merely wait until 85 to run around enemy cities.

If people would really want to explore content, they would do it on their main.- Repetition is the key to indoctrination.

They prefer alts for irrational reasons.- As the title says: Subjective and irrational are not the same thing.

But before you get the idea that I think the entire post was wrong, I agree completely with his "no alts in the guild policy". It really is the ideal that no alts join his guild or play with him. Even better would be to extend that to mains as well. It's not like he'd be lonely.

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comments:

Grezi
said...

Great post, I remember reading that post by Gevlon and thinking it's even more ridiculous than his typical stuff.

As you say, there's a big difference between 'seeing' and 'experiencing' content. Doing content at the appropriate level with a corresponding race (ie playing Forsaken in Silverpine) is a much more immersive experience for me. I feel like part of the story instead of just witnesses it unfold. Subjective, but not irrational.

I do agree that the post you are refering to of Gevlon's is a bit out of line. I personally am leveling alts to see the new early zones, learn other professions and to better learn my class.

I do think your last sentence may have crossed a line however and went a bit personal. The no alts rule does serve a purpose. I have seen first hand the effect of guild members with too many 80s can have. When 4 or 5 members of a 25 raid continually switch which characters they bring for a month, progression comes to a halt. Instead of advancing, the raid falls into a pattern of going to the same point and calling it for the week since those few members are taking time to get back into the groove of the current class and such.

Gevlon usually speaks from a logical stand point. You are speaking from an emotional stand point. Neither is wrong, it takes both a Kirk and a Spock to run a starship.

The thing is, Gevlon doesn't use real logic (most of the time). He uses pseudologic, or his own opinion as logic.

In that particular case, alts in the guild has nothing to do with bringing them to raid. Indeed, many of the people i know in top guilds are the people how have the most alts. Most of them only raid on one main, and if they do raid on alts, they're often as good on the alt as another person on their main. I know people in Drow, Ensidia etc who can do just fine on alts.

Second, not putting alts in the guild doesn't mean people don't make or play them. It just means they're guildless, which accomplishes nothing. You can easily make it a rule that people must raid on mains, and have an attendance policy (although i've met very few people who think it's unreasonable to expect to them to play the same main). It's probably more of an issue in a casual guild, because it's harder to make rules and enforce them (and i'm not saying one method is inherently better, it depends on your preference). But to say that alts in guild automatically is a failure is shortsided at best, and at worst really dumb.

If Gevlon said "I don't like alts in the guild, because it ruins the atmosphere". or even just "i don't like alts in the guild, just 'cause", i wouldn't have an issue. It's when he says "alts in guilds are dumb, and if you disagree with me you're dumb. My way is the only way". Not only is that stupid (and illogical), it's not verifiable. You can't "prove" something like that.(and to be fair, even when he does try to prove something using real logic/math, he cuts corners).

Sorry about the delayed publishing, Anonymous; somehow it got flagged as spam and I didn't notice.

That's totally why I went Alliance: more alien babes. Though technically speaking, both factions are tied at one each, people somehow forget that orcs came from an alien planet through a magical gateway.

I can't believe you wrote that many words on this subject, Klep, and still missed the point. This is incredibly simple, Gevlon stated that you don't need alts to see content, you can see it on your main faster. True. You stated that the experience was different on an alt, than on a main. True. Is this a contradiction? No. People don't make alts to see content, they make alts to make alts, to have the experience of making alts, etc. Gev is calling them on their "content" BS reason because he knows this, and you are missing the point.

This is why people say they make alts to see content: "Ok, let's make an alt of this class, I want to play it. Oh, I don't have a dwarf yet, I could see that starting zone. Content! And I could do these zones I missed before. Content! I'm making an alt to see content!" Rationalization is not rational, it is emotional. They make the alt to play with a friend, or just to re-experience low levels with a new class, or to get new tradeskills, not to see this magical content that's really not significantly different than the other zone. Gevlon's example blowing a hole in the content rationalization is a provocative and innovative way to think about something that we already knew all about, if we were honest with ourselves. I think perhaps it was written in a provocative enough style so that everyone forgot that his main point was actually obvious and we already knew it without even needing to think about it.

To be honest, your point about reading quest descriptions is something I do. I'd much rather read the quest descriptions, then try to find some challenge like a hardmode at maxlvl or undermanning low lvl dungeons with underlvl'd characters, than experience the content the way blizz intended.

"I can't believe you wrote that many words on this subject, Klep, and still missed the point."Right back at ya.If the only goal is to see content, why even use the main? Wowhead has everything. Clearly there is some subjective, irrational, emotional, social, rationalizing process going to for Gevlon to suggest that going on a main is a significantly better idea, when compared to wowhead, main or alt are both slow.

And yes, people make alts for multiple reasons. People do most things for multiple reasons, but often communicate only the most recent reason. For example, I made a human rogue recently. I wanted to see the new human content at the proper level, I wanted a jewelcrafter, I wanted to play a rogue. If asked I'd probably just say it was to see the new content, but clearly it is for multiple reasons; none of those make it irrational rationalizing.

At the risk of repetition, but to make sure my point is clear: if the goal is to merely see content, then Gevlon's suggestion of using a main rather than an alt is merely taking a slightly more efficient method, not the most efficient, meaning that he must be doing some form of rationalizing himself, which he, as he often does, refuses to acknowledge.

If instead the goal is to gain some type of experience, which might be miscommunicated with the more simplistic "seeing content", then an alt gives a different experience than a main.

If the goal is to see, don't log in; go to wowhead and youtube. If the goal is to experience, make whatever character you think will give the best experience. This is purely rational goal-seeking behavior and yet Gevlon has suggested neither of these, instead opting to stand by his "alts are bad" ideology.

"Right back at ya.If the only goal is to see content, why even use the main? "

Right back at ya again. As I've already stated, I agree, the most efficient way to see content is wowhead and youtube. Do you have a quote from Gevlon where he advocates not using wowhead and youtube? If you don't, then you are offtopic and arguing against a straw man here.

"This is purely rational goal-seeking behavior and yet Gevlon has suggested neither of these, instead opting to stand by his "alts are bad" ideology. "

Do you have a quote from Gevlon saying that "alts are bad"? If you don't, then you again are engaging in a straw man fallacy.

"At the risk of repetition, but to make sure my point is clear: if the goal is to merely see content, then Gevlon's suggestion of using a main rather than an alt is merely taking a slightly more efficient method, not the most efficient, meaning that he must be doing some form of rationalizing himself, which he, as he often does, refuses to acknowledge."

This analogy doesn't hold. If you want to see the changes they made to the game efficiently, check the web. If you want to see them in a more detailed fashion, use your main ingame. You are suggesting that using an alt is even slower than a main, but is even MORE detailed. This is false, using an alt is not more detailed. It is indeed a DIFFERENT experience, but that isn't sufficient to construct this doubly ordered continuum that you though you'd constructed.

Here's an analogy, containing both murder and angels. We have two people, one prefers efficient travel, and drives along the freeway to his destination. The other rides his bicycle along a coastal road, for a scenic route. An angel from heaven flies down and says: "stupid scenic bicycle rider! If you REALLY wanted to experience that scenic content in the way the creator intended it to be taken in, you'd kill yourself so that you could be reborn and see it afresh with awed baby eyes!" The angel then redirects a logging truck into the bicyclist with a careless flick of his wrist, as our hapless cyclist loses consciousness the last thought in his mind is this : "Goblin priest or Worgen druid?"

I don't have the quote, but usually if someone is arguing about efficiency they will either pick the most efficient method or explain why they have chosen a less efficient method. He did neither.

Since you seem to enjoy analogies, let's go with this one: though I doubt you can find an exact quote of "I am a supporter of socialist economics", you could reasonably infer such a stance based on my writing. Similarly, when a person excludes alts from a guild for a reason which does not fit the problem, and then writes more about why people are dumb to make alts, it is a reasonable inference that he has something against alts, something beyond the usual mentality of "pick a main". "Alts are bad" was an overstatement, but not by a whole lot.

Could you elaborate on what you mean by detailed? Do you mean the minutae, the tiny bits that we might miss in a screenshot? If so, there are things we will miss on a main compared to an alt; the relative power and aggressiveness of mobs being one of them.

I don't see the point of your analogy, unless you're trying to suggest that angels are assholes, which doesn't make much sense at all in the context.